Friday night saw a rushed pack and a quick trip out to Hong Kong airport.
Manila was a bit of a shock to the system, especially at 1am on a wet Saturday morning.
The people on the street were more polite than elsewhere in Asia when told no, but constantly being asked whether you want to buy cigarettes, flowers or snacks when you are trying to have a quiet beer after a long flight is never pleasant.
After a few hours sleep Saturday morning would see a confused trip out to the airport for our flight to El Nido. A small, private, airline – with an equally small airplane - we sat with other passengers in this unusually colonial feeling departure lounge being fed ice tea and cheese pastries. The flight to El Nido was scenic but quite a bumpy ride as we came into land. We'd later be told that sometimes the small planes cannot land due to weather and have to return to Manila instead.
Our arrival in El Nido corresponded with the presence of yet another Typhoon. We also had somehow not realised that it was the rainy season in this part of the Philippines. We headed out Saturday night anyway to get something to eat and grab a drink, however soon the impending bad weather had other ideas and a succession of heavy rainstorms first forced us into crowding onto tables with other tourists before then being forced to retreat to the back of the bar. It was a good night to be out though as we decided on a tour to take the next day and also set ourselves up with the group that we would spend time with for the rest of the weekend.
The night ended with us having befriended all the tour operators we would spend time with as well as numerous singalongs to old Beatles songs accompanied by a musician from one of the local covers bands. Amusingly I would later find out our singing kept another friend awake at the hostel next door...
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